By then, Griffin was heralded for writing and recording two albums filled with elevated language and startlingly emotional turns. Her all-acoustic debut, “Living With Ghosts,” was a revelation for singer-songwriter fans. Her sophomore effort, “Flaming Red,” blended rock bluster and sharp song-poems and featured a guest turn from new Patty Griffin fan Emmylou Harris.

For her third album, Griffin went to New Orleans to record at Daniel Lanois’ New Orleans studio with producer Jay Joyce and worked up a batch of songs to present to Iovine. Then she presented them. Then came the talk.

“He said, ‘You haven’t made a good record yet,’” says Griffin, who plays Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium on Monday. “He liked one song I had written. He said, ‘Get 10 more of those and I’ll put a record out for you.’ ”

Bonnie Raitt will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award at this year's Americana Awards and Honors (photo: File / The Tennessean).

In August 2011, folks within the Nashville-based Americana Music Association were amused to learn that the musical genre they promote was added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary. The dictionary dubbed Americana “a genre of American music with roots in early folk and country music.”

A little more than a year later, as the 13th annual Americana Music Festival & Conference prepares to set up shop in Nashville Wednesday through Sept. 15, the Merriam-Webster gang might want to broaden that entry a bit.

This year, the association is showing that “Americana” is a highly inclusive term. The roughly 100 participating acts at this year’s event range from folk favorites to R&B icons to rock mainstays and an exciting faction of young performers that could push the genre’s boundaries in the years to come.

Their sounds may be diverse, but the association’s executive director Jed Hilly believes the artists are united in their principle and approach.

“They’re not writing songs and making music to sell out Madison Square Garden or have a No. 1 hit at radio,” he says. “These artists are all working to tell a story through song in the best way they can. That’s their driving mission.”

Still, plenty of artists at this year’s festival — and the annual Honors & Awards show, which takes place at Ryman Auditorium on Wednesday — are no strangers to huge hits and arena-size audiences.

And when their crowds combine at the festival, it can make for a uniquely passionate audience.

“It’s a really focused group of people who take music seriously,” says Sara Watkins, who makes a return trip to the festival in support of her second solo album. “I think the people who come to these things are proud of their musical taste and put a lot of thought into it. ... They’re not passive listeners, they’re active, and they try to engage in the music as much as possible.”

That passion has led to sizable commercial success for a number of association-aligned artists. Robert Plant’s “Band of Joy” — which was named album of the year at last year’s Honors & Awards show and featured the talents of genre stars including Buddy Miller and Patty Griffin — debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard album chart. The Civil Wars, 2011 festival performers, have sold more than 400,000 copies of their independently released album “Barton Hollow.”

Hilly also cites recent releases from Raitt, the Lumineers, Alabama Shakes and Mumford & Sons — some of which had fractions of the budgets of the pop fare they share chart space with.

“That’s the business I want to be in,” he says. “Artists that are making music because they’re passionate about it, and that’s what has legs.”

Those within the music business have taken note: Spotify, TopSpin and SiriusXM are among the companies represented at the Americana Music Conference. Hilly says Americana Music Association membership rose from roughly 1,100 to 1,600 members in the past year. The number of musical acts submitting to perform at the festival nearly doubled this year from 800 to 1,400. A number of newcomers — following a similar path as young roots-pop/rock successes like Mumford & Sons, Alabama Shakes and The Civil Wars — made the cut.

One of the fresh faces is Max Gomez, a 25-year-old singer-songwriter from Taos, N.M., who cites Townes Van Zandt and John Prine among his influences. Gomez is playing in Nashville for the first time at the festival and reserved an extra day in his schedule to see other showcases and possibly meet a few of his heroes.

“There’s definitely a surge of younger people becoming more attracted to Americana and that kind of stuff,” he says. “Everybody nowadays is buying vinyl. You go to L.A., and all the hipster kids are listening to music on record players and collecting old stuff. The old thing is coming around again, and it’s really cool.”

As the festival’s future seems secure, local Americana fans hope that future involves Nashville, particularly as the International Bluegrass Music Association’s festival and awards ceremony plans to leave Nashville next year for a three-year stay in North Carolina.

While the association announced this year’s awards nominees at a special event in Los Angeles earlier this year, Hilly says, it would be hard for the main event to leave Ryman Auditorium.

“Nashville’s awesome,” he says. “I’m honored to be a part of making sure people know that it’s not just that neon exterior. I think we represent the heart and soul of this town.”

Tickets: $50 wristbands are available at www.ticketweb.com until Tuesday. Wristbands grant admission to all evening showcases throughout the festival. Individual admission prices will be charged at the door for single showcases. Conference badges — $350 for association members, $450 for non-members — grant access to all sanctioned daytime conference music, panels and parties, plus priority access to all evening showcases. Purchase of the registration badge also includes one ticket to the Americana Honors & Awards show.

And “Bob” is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. Regina toured for six years as Dylan’s harmony singer, and she recorded three albums with him. The first song on Our Journey is a radical re-working of Dylan’s classic “Blowin’ in the Wind.”

Apparently, dirt is good. Dylan explained that too many folks are singing on concrete and plastic, that they have lost the essence of singing songs that touch the listener. He said the McCrarys’ “Blowin’ in the Wind” had a foundation, a reality and a soulful spirit.

Regina knew all of that, but sometimes it’s nice to hear such things from Bob Dylan.

Click image to view a slideshow of the Americana Music Association Honors & Awards show at the Ryman. This image: Buddy Miller, who received the Artist and Instrumentalist of the Year awards, performs at the show. (Photo: John Partipilo/The Tennessean)

Top nominees Robert Plant and Buddy Miller were Thursday night’s big winners — and a trio of young acts earned high honors — at the 10th annual Americana Music Association Honors & Awards.

Plant’s album Band of Joy — recorded with an all-star Americana crew featuring Nashvillians Miller, Darrell Scott, Byron House, Marco Giovino and Texan Patty Griffin — was named album of year, Plant’s second win in the category and third overall. His bandmate Miller continued his reign as the Association’s most awarded artist, picking up his second win for Artist of the Year and fourth for Instrumentalist of Year. Toward the end of the Ryman Auditorium show, Emmylou Harris joked that the awards should change its name to “The Buddys.”

“I feel like I get away with murder, what I do. I’m really, really not that good,” Miller told the audience, who responded with incredulous laughter. “Seriously. But I get to play with some wonderfully incredibly talented people.”

Click to see a gallery of Emmylou Harris photos (this image: Jack Spencer).

There’s a point in “The Road,” Emmylou Harris’ rumination on her brief but transformative time with late, great Americana forerunner Gram Parsons, where the mournfulness might threaten to overwhelm.

The leadoff track to a new album titled Hard Bargain (out April 26), “The Road” finds Harris depicting Parsons as the impetus for her life in music. But that life, while well celebrated with honors such as her induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame, has necessarily been one of unease. As she puts it in the song, “I have spent my whole life out here working on the blues.”

But that line isn’t meant to sound self-pitying — it’s something of a nod, both to her work ethic (“I don’t take vacations,” she says) and to another late and great troubadour friend, Townes Van Zandt. It was Van Zandt who explained with a forthright whimsy that there are but two kinds of music, “The blues and zip-a-dee-doo-dah.” The blues, then, stands as the good kind, and it can’t be made without labor, taste and soul.

“That song is a ‘Thank you,’ ” Harris says. “It’s looking back and being grateful that you ran into that person and your life was changed, and all the good things that have come to you from being on that path. I’ve had wonderful company along the way.”Continue reading →

Colter is a singer and the widow of Country Music Hall of Famer Waylon Jennings, and her days are filled with people who want to talk about her late husband. They tell her stories, some of which are true. If she’s in a place where someone is making music and recognizes her, a Jennings song will soon ensue, and for Colter it will invariably be a dull replication that jostles a still-sharp memory.

“I deal with it every day, and I sometimes stand braced and other times just relax and let it go over my head,” she says. “Frankly, sometimes it hurts my heart to hear someone do his songs.”

All of which is part of why Colter was reluctant to green-light a series of three Waylon Jennings tribute albums, the first of which, The Music Inside, Vol. 1, is newly available (subsequent volumes are due in June and October). The albums feature performances of songs Jennings popularized, from the voices of those who were family (Colter and son Shooter Jennings), friends (Kris Kristofferson, Hank Williams Jr.) and admirers (Jamey Johnson, Patty Griffin and a track from a newly reunited Alabama).

If Colter was reluctant to participate in such a project, Shooter Jennings was downright apprehensive. There have been other tribute albums since Waylon’s 2002 death, and his son saw little reason to add to the pile.

“I was leery of it, and even more guarded than my mom was,” says Jennings, a singer, songwriter, recording artist and personality on Sirius XM satellite radio. “I’ve seen people with pure intentions and unrealistic goals, and I’ve seen people with agendas. And I’ve seen a Nashville system that will happily milk the ‘outlaw’ image of Waylon and other people, just so they can sell garbage.”Continue reading →

Click to see a gallery of photos from the 53rd annual Grammy Awards (this image of Lady Antebellum: Jae C. Hong/AP Photo).

LOS ANGELES - Nashville pop-country trio Lady Antebellum notched a field-leading five wins, including an all-genre top song and record prizes for multi-format hit “Need You Now,” during Sunday night’s 53rd annual Grammy Awards.

But the story of the evening was Lady Antebellum, the trio of Hillary Scott, Charles Kelley and Dave Haywood that has risen to dizzying heights less than three years after the release of its 2008 debut album.

Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs won the album of the year award, keeping Lady Antebellum from sweeping the major categories for which they were nominated. That did nothing to dampen the country group’s enthusiasm.

“It feels pretty surreal,” Kelley said after the show. “It feels like we’ve arrived, in a way.”

Scott stood in her high heels and considered her feet.

“The only way I know they’re on the ground is that they they’re really hurting from wearing these shoes.”Continue reading →

Click to see a gallery of photos from Robert Plant and the Band of Joy's concert at War Memorial Auditorium (this image: Samuel M. Simpkins/The Tennessean).

Robert Plant and his Band of Joy played Nashville’s War Memorial Auditorium Tuesday evening, an occasion that found the pleased and engaged ex-Led Zeppelin frontman center stage, surrounded by a handful of Nashville’s most valued and inventive musicians.

Acclaimed Austin singer-songwriter Patty Griffin, who often performs and records in Music City, is the only non-Nashvillian in the Band of Joy. Guitar-wielding bandleader Buddy Miller, multi-instrumentalist Darrell Scott and a rhythm section of bassist Byron House and drummer Marco Giovino round out the group. Griffin, Miller and Scott have their own solo careers, while Giovino and House are world-class players, established enough to pick and choose the gigs they take.

Plant was midway through “Tall Cool One,” a song from 1988’s Now and Zen album, with the Band of Joy providing a lesson in dynamics and synergy. A grinning Plant established eye contact with each player (especially Griffin, who danced in a shimmering dress to Plant’s left), making clear to musicians and audience alike that this night was not about approximating a Zeppelin show or about rock star poses or about anything other than the throb and sway of the musical moment.

Danny Barnes is, like Miller, Scott and Griffin, a solo artist who occasionally plays in others’ touring bands. Barnes recently wrote a blog entry titled “How To Play In Someone Else’s Band.” “Your number one job above all else is to make the leader sound good, look good and feel good,” he wrote, succinctly and correctly identifying a contributing musician’s ultimate purpose.

Tuesday, Robert Plant sounded good, looked good and felt good. He’s turned down staggering proceeds offered for a Zeppelin reunion in favor of what he feels is a more substantial reward: the ability to explore the music that fascinates him, which at the moment tends to be Americana sounds, rooted in folk and country.Continue reading →